Woman guilty of for-profit hit on ill husband

Dec. 7, 2011

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Sandra Jessee enters an Orange County courtroom in Santa Ana, Wednesday, December 7, 2011 where she was found guilty of orchestrating a murder-for-profit conspiracy against her ailing husband Jack Jessee. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Chere Williams hugs an old friend of her father Jack Jessee, Wednesday after Sandra Jessee was found guilty of orchestrating a murder-for-profit conspiracy against her ailing husband Jack Jessee. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Jack Jessee Photo courtesy of the Jessee Family

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Juror Cheryl Nagel hugs a member of Jack Jesse's family after Sandra Jessee was found guilty of his murder in Santa Ana, Wednesday, December 7, 2011. Nagel said she had compassion for the ailing victim, "I spent 18 years taking care of my husband," she said. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Orange County Deputy District Attorney Mike Murray said, "The defendant testifying was the best thing for our case," after Sandra Jessee was found guilty of orchestrating a murder-for-profit conspiracy against her ailing husband Jack Jessee in court in Santa Ana, Wednesday, December 7, 2011. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Tom Dove, a retired Orange County Sheriff investigator, explains how the case against Sandra Jessee was cracked leading to a guilty verdict in court in Santa Ana, Wednesday, December 7, 2011. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Cheryl Deanda, daughter of murder victim Jack Jessee, talks to media about the loss of her father after court in Santa Ana, Wednesday, December 7, 2011. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Jack Jessee's daughter Chere Williams reacts Wednesday after Sandra Jessee was found guilty of orchestrating a murder-for-profit conspiracy against her ailing husband Jack Jessee. "It is very, very happy, nice closure. She was an evil woman," she said of Sandra Jessee. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Beverly Crane, sister of murder victim Jack Jessee, talks about the guilty verdict against Sandra Jessee after court in Santa Ana, Wednesday, December 7, 2011. "I expected the verdict soon," she said. "It was a slam-dunk case." JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Sandra Jessee enters an Orange County courtroom in Santa Ana, Wednesday, December 7, 2011 where she was found guilty of orchestrating a murder-for-profit conspiracy against her ailing husband Jack Jessee.JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – An Orange County jury Wednesday found a woman guilty of orchestrating a hit on her husband because she worried his cancer was eating up their nest egg.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated less than four hours before finding Sandra Jessee, 60, formerly of Placentia, guilty of one felony count of special-circumstances murder for financial gain and one felony count of conspiracy in the killing that took place Aug. 13, 1998.

Jessee now faces life in state prison without the possibility of parole at her March 2 sentencing by Superior Court Judge James Stotler.

Prosecutors said she had Jack Jessee, who had been battling colon cancer, murdered so she could save money by not paying for his cancer treatments and to profit from his insurance and 401(k) death benefits.

Her father had called her around 9:20 p.m. the night of the killing saying he was worried about Sandra Jessee, who had gone out shopping.

So, Deanda, who lived about two miles away, drove to her dad's home, talked with him for a moment and then went looking for Sandra Jessee.

She returned 20 minutes later, but he was dead.

Deanda and other relatives let out a collective sigh of relief as the guilty verdicts were announced in Stotler's ninth-floor courtroom.

"I am just really happy that ... she's finally going to pay for the crimes she did," Deanda said afterward. "She was greedy, selfish and evil."

Sandra Jessee's attorney patted her back just moments before the verdicts were read.

Jack Jessee's sisters, Beverly Crane and Marla Story, sat in another row. Story had her eyes closed as she clutched her husband Pat's hand.

The sisters broke into tears at the announcement.

"I just cried inside," said Crane of Lakewood, who like most relatives attended every day of Jessee's trial. "My heart felt it was flipping over."

"It's been a long time coming," said Marla Story of Blythe.

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This was a retrial for Sandra Jessee after jurors deadlocked 11-1 in favor of conviction in 2009 when both Jessee and her son, Thomas Dayton Aehlert, 41, were tried.

"After all these years, after 13 years of waiting," Deputy District Attorney Mike Murray asked jurors in his closing arguments, "hold this woman responsible for what she did to her husband."

Jurors did.

Unlike the first time, the defendant testified at her second trial.

"I thought Sandra Jessee made a good case into a great case," Murray said after the verdicts.

Even if you didn't know anything about the facts of the case, it was obvious by her demeanor, by the way she responded to questions that she was lying," he said.

Some of the jurors, who stayed to speak with reporters, said they found Sandra Jessee unbelievable and uncaring.

"I was surprised that she took the stand," said juror Cheryl Nagel of Laguna Hills. "I didn't think she was believable at all ... She never looked at Jack's picture up on the board. She never seemed sorry."

"I think the thing for me that was most telling was when we heard Jack's voice 'I need her help,' " said Nagel, adding she cared for her sick husband for years. "It was extremely distasteful for me that she didn't take care of him."

Murray used medical records during his cross examination to quiz Jessee, including notes made by a nurse that revealed Jack Jessee had said those words after his second cancer surgery.

When the nurse began explaining how to handle a colostomy bag that he was to get, she wrote Sandra Jessee went and sat in a corner and covered her ears.

Sandra Jessee insisted that was the nurse's interpretation and maintained she did everything to make her husband of 15 years comfortable and was his sole caretaker, initiating his cancer treatments herself.

That she was out shopping the night of the crime – the window during which the murder happened – and financial records showing she was paying bills the next day "didn't jive," he said.

Jessee's attorney, Deputy Public Defender Derek Bercher, argued she was a doting wife and two co-defendants, who offered conflicting testimony during the trial, were sacrificing her to secure their freedoms.

Among dramatic moments during several weeks of testimony, Aehlert of Gold Canyon, Ariz., who acknowledged that he was a "mama's boy" nonetheless testified against her, saying she approached his former best friend, Brett Schrauben, herself for the hit.

Aehlert's testimony collided on some points with Schrauben's, who said Aehlert brokered the deal.

Both were labeled "scoundrels" by Bercher, who told jurors that deals they got from the prosecutor for their testimony against Jessee had a "distorting effect" on the process.

Murray said the mother and son solicited and paid Schrauben, 39, formerly of Coto de Caza, $50,000 to kill Jack Jessee.

Schrauben's friend, Thomas Joseph Garrick, 36, of Laguna Hills, who is accused of being the actual stabber, was arrested in November.

In a deal negotiated with prosecutors, Aehlert pleaded guilty in October to second-degree murder and faces a sentence of 15 years to life at his March sentencing. Among other things, he also agreed to truthfully testify at all proceedings related to Jack Jessee's killing.

Schrauben pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in 2008 and is scheduled to be sentenced later this month.

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